Health Literacy Paper

Background: Health literacy is a multidimensional concept consisting of ‘the knowledge, motivation and a set of abilities require to access, understand, process, evaluate and use health information to make judgments regarding three-fold health domains as health care, disease prevention, and health promotion (Sørensen et al., 2015). In fact, health literacy is the same general literacy which is affected by particular and general health-related factors (Kindig, Panzer, & Nielsen-Bohlman, 2004; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion). For instance, the verbal and audio information exchanged through the health care episodes is an active factor in patient-provider communication which is related to patient health outcomes, so using plain text and teach-back method must be observed in patient-providers communication (Nouri & Rudd, 2015).

In fact, many health care providers are not often cognizant of inadequate literacy among patients; hence, they overestimate patients’ knowledge of medical conditions, ways of disease prevention and existing therapeutic options. Therefore, appropriate health educational advice had not been made in medical encounters (Evangelista et al., 2010; Shaw, Huebner, Armin, Orzech, & Vivian, 2009). According to the literature, little health literacy affects the lack of regular participation in screening programs (Davis et al., 2001) and deprivation of receiving care efficiently among patients (M. V. Williams, Parker, Baker, & et al., 1995). Moreover, people with inadequate health literacy use preventive health services lower than health literate individuals (Scott, Gazmararian, Williams, & Baker,